Vegetation history and landscape development of a dune area  near Uhyst (Oberlausitz, E Germany) in the Lateglacial, Early Holocene,  and Late Holocene: a new interpretation of a pollen diagram of Klaus  Kloss.

In the search for pollen diagrams from NE Germany for the study of patterns in vegetation and sedimentation during the Weichselian Lateglacial it was discovered that many unpublished palynological data from the period of the German Democratic Republic are preserved in archives of research institutions. In order to save these data from sinking into oblivion and to make them available to the scientific audience, part of this material was digitalised and published (see revision of old palynological data from E Germany). One of the sites is from the legacy of the late Klaus Kloss near Uhyst (Saxonia, SE Germany), and was already published by Kloss (1991), but a revision of the interpretation was desirable.

Location of the investigated site in E Germany

The open-cast mine “Bärwalde”, currently out-of use, lies between the villages Bärwalde, Boxberg and Uhyst immediately east of the river Spree. The studied peat sequence CUh 86/1 (51°22´25´´N,  14°32´07´´E), located in a dune valley, was derived from the excavated mine-wall of January 1986. In the near surroundings of this locality some 1-1.5 m long pine trunks were found that were buried under a dune (Wetzel 1992, 1998). The buried soil related with these pine trunks spatially connects to the fossil soil in the lower part of the analysed section CUh 86/1. Two ¹⁴C-dates of the pine trunks date these to the later Allerød.

The pollen record shows a continuous sequence from the Allerød to the late Preboreal, and a section from the late Holocene. The local vegetation history of the dune valley started with a dry vegetation of Cyperaceae that drowned due to groundwater rise in the late Allerød. During the Younger Dryas and early/middle Preboreal gyttja and sand was deposited in an aquatic environment. Local vegetation during the Preboreal consisted of Nymphaea, Typha and ferns. During the late Preboreal the site terrestrialised. In the late Holocene, an alder carr inhabited the valley. Phases of aeolian activity and associated dune formation prevailed in the late Allerød and early/middle Preboreal and were markedly reduced (though not absent) during the Younger Dryas.

Publications:

De Klerk, P. (2005): Vegetation history and landscape development of a dune area  near Uhyst (Oberlausitz, E Germany) in the Lateglacial, Early Holocene,  and Late Holocene: a new interpretation of a pollen diagram of Klaus  Kloss. Archiv für Naturschutz und Landschaftsforschung 44(3): 79-92.

Kloss, K. (1991): Beitrag zur Vegetationsgeschichte und Moorgenese in einem Dünengebiet bei Uhyst, Kr. Hoyerswerda. Veröffentlichungen des Museums für Ur- und Frühgeschichte Potsdam 25: 75-77.

Related publications:

Wetzel, G. (1992): Die Siedlungsgeschichte im Kreis Hoyerswerda bis zum Mittelalter. In: Hoyerswerda, Geschichte und Geschichten aus Dörfern und Städten. Geiger Verlag,  Horb am Neckar: 22-31.

Wetzel, G. (1998): Archäologische Geschichtsschreibung im Kreis Hoyerswerda bis 1990: Ausgrabungen und Funde vor 1945 und in Verantwortung des Museums für Ur- und Frühgeschichte Potsdam. Sächsische Heimatblätter 4: 193-202.+